The content was published in the early hours of 8 January, and was posted to the PinkNews Facebook page shortly after, but was deleted, apparently because it was reported to Facebook as inappropriate.

All PinkNews writers who have access to the Facebook page also temporarily lost access to their own logins as a result of the deletion.

It contained a quote from Ms Banks’ Twitter page, which contained the homophobic slur, and was posted in quotation marks with the word in its original form.

Sources at Facebook attributed the deletion to the word “faggot” being used in the headline, said that occasionally the user operations officers made mistakes, and that it was in no way intended as censorship. A spokesperson for Facebook said:

“This item of content was removed in error by a member of the Facebook team having been reported to us. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. Pink News are welcome to reshare the content should they wish to do so.”

PinkNews covers religion, politics, entertainment, finance, and community news for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community in the UK and worldwide. Founded to produce broadsheet quality journalism for the LGBT community, we cover politics to theology in an intelligent manner.